The Last Dog: The Last Dog, #1

By Dawn Greenfield Ireland

After the Unified World Pact of 2045, people lived in a state of peace and prosperity previously unknown in human history. The World Guild, the new global government, managed all the needs of humanity and the animals it loved.

Then in 2086, a security breach of Xavier Labs in Colorado and Zheng Industries in China released the deadly experimental agent XSKL435. Anyone outside was dead within minutes.

As statistics on the death toll are gathered from all over the world, Abby, the six-week old dog-daughter of Bill and Teresa Maxwell, was one of only four known surviving canines. News services soon announce that the other three dogs had succumbed to the deadly poison. Abby was now the last dog.

Bill, an engineering genius who invented The Dot, a chip designed to hold the medical records and history of a person, that the government enhanced with every bit of information, also programmed The Dot for animal speak.

He decides to insert Abby's dot early because he suspects that if she's the last dog, the government will want her. He and Teresa warn Abby that if the government does come for her and takes her away, she can't talk until someone inserts a different dot in her scruff.

Abby is confiscated and held captive at a lab. While there, she meets Rex, a highly intelligent robot dog and they become friends. When Rex is transferred to the Tranquility Force (police), Abby becomes despondent. She studies everything about the lab and its people and makes a plan.

After escaping from the lab, Abby must quickly learn how to survive in the wild. Bill and Teresa must devise a plan to find Abby without being arrested themselves.

Neither Abby, or her human parents know whether their plans will work, if they will survive the journey, or if they will be reunited. But love of family drives them onward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: dawnireland1
• Release date: Dec 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781940385075

Dawn Greenfield Ireland

Dawn Greenfield Ireland is the author of several award-winning novels, nonfiction books, and screenplays. To date she has 21 published books that consists of four series (cozy mystery, YA science fiction/fantasy, adult shape-shifter, and dystopian), sci-fi romance adventure, and nonfiction work, which includes online courses. See also my adult shapeshifter books (Bonded) under the name of DG Ireland.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Then and Now

AD 2030 – 2086 NWO*

The year 2086 is referred to as the beginning of the New World Order (NWO*), and it had taken its toll on humanity. To understand the before and after of this single year it would be advantageous to take a step back in time and peruse the vast changes of the past fifty-six years.

Many people have an inner struggle with change. They don’t want to move an inch out of their comfort zone. The familiar, whether it’s good or bad, is easier than learning new rules, especially when it concerns everything about their daily life. Some welcome change with open arms. They are optimistic about crossing the bridge and enjoying what’s waiting on the other side.

After more than a decade of people wondering whether they would have Social Security when they retired, the SSA was finally overhauled in 2035. A new numbering system incorporated a genealogical data gathering/compilation that left nothing private.

The old nine-digit number grew. Depending on an individual’s ethnicity, religion, sexual grouping, and medical criteria, the number ranged from fourteen to twenty-five digits. Memorization was a chore.

Also on the horizon, a global government was emerging and the lineup of powers shifted for another decade. The USA dipped and regained top power, but the United Kingdom teeter-tottered among China, India, Japan and Germany.

Several important things changed between 2030 and 2035 that not only paved the way for vast changes in practices, beliefs, expectations and quality of life in the United States of America, but as the rest of the world watched US events taking place, changes spread across the globe with a viral swiftness that could not be stopped.

Everyday people woke up one morning in 2030 and decided that they would not sit still while their government ran amuck, the FDA and pharmaceutical companies poisoned them, and the media churned out paid news for the deep pockets of corruption. United States citizens took back their country and government in a public, non-violent war that shook the world.

What started in the mid-2000s with protests and petitions, quietly but quickly became an organized party that literally stormed government offices across the country just before noon on September 9, 2030 and escorted public officials out of their offices.

It helped that top military brass led the new party. Time seemed to stand still as there were more than a few shaky moments where the usurpers faced soldiers and weapons but the military was forced to stand down via orders from the top. Everything happened so quickly that the public didn’t have time to blink or think.

A new Declaration of Life was created that included the following provisions:

Everyone deserved basic living standards: food, water, shelter, education and health benefits.

All recreational drugs would be cheap, legal and readily available, thus saving grandmothers growing and selling pot to try to survive the economy.

No money, goods or services would leave the US until infrastructure was one hundred percent in place from coast-to-coast and top-to-bottom of the entire land.

The US would not support any country or cause that went against its policies for human rights.

English was the language of the US. Period. Citizens learned it or they could leave the country; there was no choice.

Revolving prison doors screeched to a halt with massive rehabilitation and education programs. Prisons were torn down and replaced with condos.

Provisions (4) and (5) spurred the Deportation Act of 2032. The old Homeland Security had secretly scanned people with a radiant blue light, too faint for the human eye to detect, in grocery stores, gas stations, and Walmarts.

The Blue Light report captured precise details including fingerprints, and no one ever suspected.

Unfriendly illegal immigrants were shipped back to their home countries, which had been a mixed blessing. Once scanned, any person whose picture was not found in a database containing photos of US, naturalized or legally accepted citizens, was rounded up at the exit where they were scanned again and taken for a ride.

Foreigners who had caused massive grumblings were shipped out of the US by the plane-full.

The labor force to replace those workers was almost non-existent. Real Americans didn’t want to mow lawns, become maids and janitors or work in convenience stores.

That’s when the welfare system was yanked.

Generational welfare families received letters instructing them to report to work stations where they would be assigned a job. There was no accepting or denying; only complying.

Provision (6) required that prisoners be sorted. Non-violent inmates, petty thieves, drug addicts and the like became the new grounds-keepers, thereby working off their time. By contributing to the workforce, they earned their way back into society.

To cut down on supervision, prisoners were fitted with newly developed programmed collars that enforced the coordinates of the assignment, tasks to be performed, breaks allowed, and the return to the prison pickup point.

If a prisoner tried to escape or sit down on the job, a jolt of electricity sped through their veins, making them model citizens.

Violent criminals who underwent successful rehabilitation were collared and joined the workforce. Those who failed rehab underwent a brainswipe and started over and were monitored closely.

During this tumultuous time in the 2030s, the government took a serious look at its citizens. Obesity was running rampant. The World Obesity Prevention Act (WOPA) became one of the most feared programs.

It had taken eight years for nations to agree on the universal weight, height and body type charts for men, women, and children. And during that time healthy eating and exercising regimes—discounted as useless to fat people—were examined by doctors from around the globe, and the solution to the obesity problem was formulated. Once the details were hashed out and the WOPA act took effect, the United States, once the fattest nation on the planet, became the poster child for physical fitness.

Back when all the scanning by Homeland Security was taking place, if anyone bought anything, they, and everything in their possession at the time of their transaction, were scanned by the nefarious radiant blue light.

The scanners captured images in detail. There was no opportunity to lie about weight, hair color, whether teeth were real, or if eye color had been enhanced with contacts.

Families began hiding their overweight family members from prying eyes. If someone turned them in, or they were discovered, they were picked up by authorities for treatment.

WOPA-approved treatment consisted of heated fiber optic wires that were wrapped around the person, mummy-style, from head to toe. Steam rose off the fiber optic wires as the fat melted and drained from shunts into a vat.

The Blue Light diagnosed spending habits and eventually found a few secret stuffers hiding behind friends and family. Once the signal was sent through the network, they were rounded up one by one. The old term fat farm took on new meaning. It was a messy affair.

Another shift that transpired between 2032 and 2042 was the flip of the Mexican government. There were so many Americans living in Mexico that the standard of living changed remarkably. Gone were drug lords and all the murderous feuds from the 1990s up through 20teens. Gone were the corrupt politicians that had raped, pillaged and plundered their country of its resources and revenues.

The American-Mexicans demanded and brought about change throughout that land and in 2044 Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and the country of Mexico merged to form its own independent district. It was not a state or a country. The United States government declared that Texmexzona (TMZ) was an outlaw district and if citizens of the US moved there, their US residency was yanked.

During this troubling time, religion changed almost overnight when megachurches collapsed. Members reevaluated their core beliefs and decided (1) they did not need to pay to pray anymore; 2) they sure didn’t need to support a multi-millionaire preacher while they themselves tithed ten percent of their highly-taxed income while; (3) the sexual abuse scandals continued decade after decade involving priests and ministers.

By the time 2045 rolled around, mainstream religion was almost non-existent. At that time, the Vatican was torn down and sold off in pieces, similar to the old Berlin Wall. March 27 was set aside for All Beliefs Celebration. People could worship however they pleased on that day.

After the Unified World Pact of 2045 was signed, people lived in a state of peace and prosperity previously unknown in human history. The World Guild, the new global government, managed all the needs of humanity and the animals it loved.

Technological innovations flourished. Many industries that were solid footholds for decades, and even centuries, vanished due to major changes in technology. As the computer chip became smaller and more powerful, computing technology changed. Gone were desktops, towers, laptops, iPads and everything in between.

The world went virtual and holographic. People loved it because this new world was finally, truly interactive and it didn’t take a lot of brainpower to figure out how to use new devices.

With technology shrinking and morphing, things that 20th Century and early 21st Century people swore would never be affected simply went away. Forever. Gasoline, natural and other gasses, oil, and coal became obsolete as natural resources became cheaper and easier to utilize. Fossil fuels would stay in the ground forevermore.

Solar, wind and the new power from the universe outside of Earth’s atmosphere (space), became cheap, clean and easy. As microchips shrunk, so did the cells required for solar collectors. Wind farms sprang up across the globe along with the new collecting dishes that satellites used to beam the gathered energy from space.

At first all forms of vehicles changed over from gas and oil to solar and hydrogen (water). Then, when Brandon Lyons George III successfully demonstrated a sleek, sexy, silver vehicle that operated using the Earth’s natural magnetic system at the 2047 Chicago Auto Show, the face of transportation changed forever.

The Mag-car appeared to hover, tireless, about a foot off the dais on the show floor. Over time, the Mag-car evolved into the gliders that whizzed through the air in 2086.

Airspace was divided into zones appropriate for specific types of gliders: 1) individual and family; 2) commercial; and 3) industrial. There were gliders for every function or industry.

And then the incident of 2076 occurred.

An earthquake that officially registered as 9.2 on the Richter scale tore the US West Coast apart. The tectonic plates along the San Andreas Fault didn’t just shift; they jumped and screamed, shook and cracked the earth as if a bomb had been wedged beneath the surface.

Miraculously, San Diego remained unscathed, as did Vancouver, BC. Everything else between those two destinations—approximately twelve hundred and fifty-five miles of pristine real estate along the Pacific Ocean coastline—split away from the mainland as if the Earth spit them out and dropped huge globs of land into the ocean, before slowly bobbing to the surface.

The land had been cleansed of any and all civilization caught off-guard in the seventeen minutes of the foremost terror that the United States had ever experienced.

The resulting tsunami fanned out across the Pacific Ocean, wiping out the Hawaiian Islands. The wall of water continued westward and roared over Japan and Korea, leaving debris in its wake.

Hong Kong was obliterated as were Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Miraculously, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand were spared.

The New Islands, as the surviving land masses off the western coast of the United States were now called, were made up of sixteen California islands, four Oregon islands and two Washington State islands. Survivors of the disaster divided into two groups: those who saw the advantage of being apart from the mainland, and solid-land lovers who evacuated the islands in herds.

The US and the rest of the world slowly recovered. Some areas rebuilt; others remained wastelands—constant reminders of the mysterious workings of Mother Nature.

After the chaos settled, a young man named William Maxwell wowed the world with his inventions in 2082.

Bill and his wife Teresa were childless, as were many people in the 2070s and 2080s due to decades of toxic forms of birth control—hormone therapies and sperm inhibitors promoted heavily by the disbanded FDA and pharmaceutical companies.

The long-ago problem with dog and cat overpopulation did a reversal. People fought to adopt dogs and cats and waiting lists spurred bribery and black-market adoptions.

Bill was a genius. His forward-thinking, practical mind churned out many patents, but two would stand out as his most brilliant ideas: The Dot, and the PawBoard, precursor of the HoloRemote.

The Dot solved many societal problems: It contained those long ID numbers that no one could memorize and it aided the Sky Angels in finding lost animal and human children or a wandering supercentenarian. Eventually the Dot made money obsolete since anything anyone required or desired could be purchased via a Dot scan, which became commonplace at every shopping facility and distribution center.

Bill worked diligently for six years (2076-2082) expanding the Dot’s functions to make it possible for dog and cat children to communicate with their human family members. It had been a challenge to solve the myriad of interspecies language translation problems.

After that, it was a simple matter of tweaking the voice coding in the tiny transmitter that worked with a nano-receiver that was injected in the larynx to translate animal thought into a synthesized voice. Dog-thought sent electrical signals to the transmitter, which triggered the larynx to respond with the pre-selected voice. Bill’s Dot technology was a stepping stone in the intelligence evolution of the canine species.

Cats, while intelligent, proved to be less than desirable Dot subjects, as some parents discovered. Most felines had no interest in learning to communicate on a higher level. They rather liked keeping their human companions in a constant state of guessing.

To encourage a more well-rounded education of animal children, Bill created a paw-friendly keyboard called the PawBoard that connected to the Universal Connection Platform, or UCP, which the 21th Century Internet had evolved into.

The PawBoard, while considered a rather large, awkward device, was another leap for dogs and cats in understanding the modern, technological world of humans. Bill’s device enabled a dog or cat to step on a button and connect to the UCP. From there, they could choose from approximately 5,000 programming options most of which were educational.

A week after the PawBoard debuted, Bill and Teresa’s adoption application was approved and they became the happy parents of Lilith, a Bull Terrier newly weaned from her mother, Arabella.

The work on the HoloRemote took a back burner while the new family settled down, then Bill tackled the canine Dot to implement his latest wonder.

Historical TimelineAcronyms and Terms for TLDAcronyms-Terms-2Acronyms-Terms-3Acronyms-Terms-4

CHAPTER ONE

Aberdeen Tallulah Maxwell, nicknamed Abby, and fondly called Puppy-dup by Teresa and Bill Maxwell, her human mother and father, tottered on six-week-old puppy legs across an expanse of slippery terra cotta tile in the vast kitchen that never seemed to end.

She lifted her black nose to the air and sniffed, then whimpered woefully as she looked about. No whelping box here. Everything was big and way over her head and she didn’t recognize any of the skinny furniture legs or wooden walls of the curved counter.

Her back shone like rich brown velvet in the sunlight that warmed the floor from the rays pouring through the high kitchen windows. Abby’s two white toenails looked opaque in the sunlight, one on her front right paw and the other on her left rear foot.

Her little angular face showed a resemblance to Lilith, her bull terrier mother.

Jimbo Smythe, Abby’s canine father, was a purebred black Labrador who had an uncanny ability of climbing any wall or fence in pursuit of romance. He breached fences throughout the neighborhood and as far away as three miles. Some thought Jimbo must be part cat since he always landed on his feet no matter how high the fence.

Unfortunately, Jimbo jumped one fence too many and mindlessly careened into a low-flying air glider, thus abandoning his family in an untimely death.

Abby plopped down in the middle of the kitchen floor, stuck her nose in the air stretching the elongated white star on her chest, and wailed.

Abby! Lilith called from the whelping box.

Ejonia Matthews, the beloved house manager for the Maxwell’s, stood in front of the food console, her stout body draped in a brightly colored flowing dress that cascaded almost to her sandaled feet. Thick brown braided hair was wrapped around the back of her head, and a beaded, braided loop hung at the center back of her head. Fingers and toes were adorned with colorful rings and bands.

She watched as Abby stood with her ears perked and turned in a half circle and barked in her biggest puppy voice.

Go find your canine mother, Ejonia said.

Abby looked up at Ejonia’s eyes and whined.

That way. Ejonia pointed toward the hallway.

Lilith barked once and warbled in normal dog-talk.

Abby galloped in the direction of her canine mother’s voice, her feet slipping and sliding on the tile around table and chair legs, down the hallway on the slippery wooden floor and over the threshold into her human father’s combination office and lab.

Ejonia crept after Abby and peeked into the lab. All the puppies, except for Abby, were sound asleep.

Come to bed, Lilith scolded.

Abby scampered over the ledge of the whelping box that had kept the puppies inside the box until two days ago when they learned how to climb. She barked playfully, two feet on the fleece bed and two feet planted firmly on the office floor.

Lilith gently lifted Abby by the scruff of her neck and placed her in the bed. Abby pawed at Lilith’s face and bit her ears until she wore herself out.

Settle down, little girl, Lilith said. She licked Abby’s face.

Abby cuddled down in the bed with her sisters and brothers and yawned. Within minutes she was asleep.

Lilith looked at Ejonia. Finally! she said.

We’re going to have to put up a gate so they can’t get out of the room, Ejonia said.

They’ll figure a way, Lilith said, knowingly.

* * *

Bill Maxwell, the thirty-three-year-old founder and CEO of Maxwell Industries, walked across a crushed rock surface outside the new main building where a fountain sprayed a fine mist. A couple of dog-children romped through the water until their parents whistled for them. They jumped down from the fountain and then shook their coats, soaking their human parents.

The sprawling four-story multi-building complex spanned a park-like setting equaling ten football fields, with the Santa Cruz Mountains as a backdrop. Bill had jumped at the opportunity to purchase the land after the incident of twenty-seventy-six.

He approached the door, spotted a bunch of tourists, and snuck around to the side door to gain access. He ran undetected up the stairs to his office and labs that contained many guarded prototypes unknown to the government or the general population. Bill had developed robotic bees that flew around the complex and his home, in and out of power connections, air ducts, and any crevice or opening to explore, detect and report any spyware or probes.

If the bees discovered any abnormalities, robotic wasp-ants were dispatched to defuse, destroy or capture the infiltrators and tow them back to a holding case where Bill could study them. Most were silly unsophisticated units that were no challenge to decode. Sometimes Bill rewired their circuits and used them as double agents to gather information for him.

Toby, one of Bill’s trusted employees, had a lot of fun with the physical characteristics of the bees and wasp-ants. He was well known for his sense of humor.

* * *

The crowd of tourists swarmed around the lobby, fascinated with the information while taking in the virtual storyboards. The company history was displayed on the wall monitors and contained several of Bill’s most prominent inventions, including the Dot.

A middle-aged woman with the latest chrome beauty mark by her lime green lips stood beside one storyboard. Her bright green, red and purple caftan with embedded glitter flowed and sparkled with her movements as she conducted a virtual tour for the group of people. William Maxwell is a technological genius who owned several successfully developed patents at the age of twenty-three. When Maxwell Industries announces a new product, the world listens. She pressed buttons on a hand-held device that started a virtual player on the first storyboard.

The Dot is a microscopic disc less than 0.0396875 centimeters in diameter. The Dot contains your entire history—medical, genetic, home location, workplace, and, when required, will aid the Sky Angels in finding you if you are lost or injured. The Dot is a safe harbor for animal and human children or wandering supercentenarians.

The second storyboard showed a Dot insertion procedure and explained that Dots became mandatory in 2080. A man in a white lab coat smiled as he held a compressor syringe over the palm-side of a woman’s wrist. He pressed the plunger on the syringe and painlessly inserted the Dot. The woman smiled at the man at the end of the procedure.

The next storyboard showed how the Dot had made paper money obsolete. Employers bought into the government’s idea that income credits could be incorporated into the Dot. Anything anyone required or desired could be purchased via a Dot scan if a person had the credits. Dot scans became commonplace at every shopping facility and distribution center.

Viewers watched a holographic clip of Bill and a team of programmers and technologists working diligently in a lab setting in an old building. They were intent on expanding the Dot’s functions to make it possible for dog and cat children to communicate with human family members. Each segment of the holograph was date-stamped showing the year of research and development, sometime between 2076 and 2080.

The brightly dressed guide touched the thin screen and showed the group a file which contained the code that had been a challenge for Bill and his team. The holographic narration continued with a discussion about how language experts and software programmers had to solve the myriad of interspecies language translation problems.

The visitors murmured among themselves as thousands of lines of code flew by on the screen.

The visitors giggled as various dog and cat children spoke in different voices on the screen as their speech was tweaked. The first tries did not produce anything that could be translated into any recognizable language.

The tour guide pointed to the various buttons on the wall and encouraged the group to press them and listen to the selection of voice examples. While the visitors pressed buttons, and laughed at some of the voice responses, the tour guide explained how it worked.

The programming sends electrical signals to the transmitter, which triggers the larynx to respond with the pre-selected voice that is transmitted to a special collar with speakers, thus allowing a conversation to take place, she said.

A lady raised her hand. I don’t understand how that could work.

There’s a tiny transmitter that works with a nano-receiver in the larynx, the guide explained.

Oh, the lady said.

The guide had to further explain what and where the larynx was and that the Dot technology was a stepping stone in the intelligence evolution of the canine species.

After the group finished playing with the buttons, they meandered down the storyboard wall to other inventions.

* * *

Teresa Maxwell walked into Bill’s home office and approached the whelping box. While she and Bill were only months apart with birthdays in January and July, she looked barely twenty-five. The puppies were sleeping in the curve of their canine mother’s belly. Lilith raised her head. Teresa cupped one of Lilith’s cheeks.

Mommy’s going to the office to meet Auntie Gayle. I’ll be back this afternoon, okay? she whispered.

Okay, Lilith whispered. I’m going to take a nap.

Teresa bent over and kissed Lilith on the head.

* * *

Myra-June Meyer, Teresa’s front-office assistant, greeted Teresa and Gayle as they entered the newly constructed fourth-floor office suite. The tiny red-head wore a fitted fine-knit charcoal colored sheathe as she arranged office tools at her work space.

Hi, Mrs. Maxwell. Hi Mrs. Goanflower, Myra-June said.

Gayle’s hair and eyes, as dark as polished opals, and flawless skin a creamy tan, made her unforgettable. She came to a dead stop as she took in the white walls with tan, gold and gray accents. She ran her hand across the back of a gold-tone chair and admired the gray fleece dog beds precisely stationed on the Berber carpeting to balance the room.

A chrome dog-and-cat faucet and a water bowl were against one wall a few feet from the co-species animal bathroom closet.

Is that bathroom closet new? Gayle asked. I don’t remember seeing this one in your old office.

I wanted to upgrade for my new office, Teresa said.

Gayle stuck her head in the bathroom closet open doorway. The floor was covered with spongy artificial grass that smelled like real grass. The fine sand area was freshly raked and the shallow wading pool contained about an inch of circulating water.

Gayle turned and took in the reception area. I like your command center, Myra-June. The curved tan, white and gray desk console was a focal point of the outer office.

The perky assistant bounced up from her chair and flung her arms out. Isn’t this a great room?

It’s spectacular! Gayle said.

Any messages? Teresa asked.

The Trident Group would like to discuss a research project. I sent you all the details but also put a hard copy on your desk, Myra-June said.

Hmmm, Teresa said. I’ll look it over.

Teresa linked her arm through Gayle’s and walked her past Myra-June’s desk and opened the door to a hallway.

They passed two closed doors on the left side of the well-lit hall and one on the right. At the end of the hallway a closed door beckoned. Teresa opened the door to her spacious office and ushered Gayle inside.

Oh, my Great Earth! This is beautiful, T! Gayle said. I wish I were a dog!

The room did not contain a desk. Virtual pictures hung on the wall, one row at floor level for animal children and another row several feet higher at a human adult eye level. Leg-less overstuffed sofas and dog and cat beds were laid out in a half-circle and did not obstruct the pictures.

Dog and cat toys were stowed in boxes, and another chrome dog-and-cat faucet and a water bowl were positioned to the right of the doorway. There was ample room for animal children to romp around without crashing into anything that could hurt them.

The lower virtual pictures contained stimulating action views of butterflies flitting through the air, rabbits hopping, lizards creeping, squirrels going about their busy business and other animals doing things that a dog or cat child would find interesting.

Teresa flopped onto one of the floor sofas and patted the cushion for Gayle to join her.

You’re not going to psychoanalyze me, are you? Gayle asked.

Only if you bark, meow, or pee on the floor, Teresa said.

They giggled.

I can’t believe this day has arrived! Teresa said. It seemed as if the construction would never end.

Gayle looked around the room. It was so worth the wait, T. Your other office was okay, but this is so vibrant, open and inviting. Like I said, I wish I were an animal-child so I could come here for therapy.

Teresa’s smile faded as a bad thought crossed her face. Not a day went by that she didn’t curse the old drug-pushing FDA and those doctors of the past who only prescribed drugs instead of trying to heal people. Only one in a hundred women could conceive now and she was not one of them. Everyone knew that if someone